Premium Rate Services allow businesses , individuals and organizations to use telecom channels of SMS via shortcodes and bulk sms, USSD and voice (IVR | Interactive Voice Response ) to create compelling consumer propositions. We are licensed by the Communication Authority of Kenya and connected to all major mobile network operators in Kenya and expanding to Uganda, Tanzania ,Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria.

SMS Short codes

SMS Short codes are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter and more memorable than full telephone numbers eg. 36824 or 411 that are used to facilitated communication on mobile phones. Short codes can be configured in a number of ways depending on your desired interaction.

Zero rate: your consumer / client is not billed for any interactions over the shortcode and you meet the cost of the messaging

Normal rate: your consumer is charged at the rate of their subscribed tariff, with no additional cost to you

Premium rate: your consumer is billed at an agreed and set rate higher than their normal tariff

Billing can be done on MO – Mobile origination, where if your consumer does not have the required airtime balance they will not access the service ( excellent for upfront content purchases, opinion polls and lotteries ) or MT – Mobile Termination, where consumers can access the service with fulfilment and billing happening as the content or response is delivered ( excellent for subscription based services ).

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Bulk SMS

Bulk SMS Messaging is the dissemination of large numbers of SMS messages for delivery to consumer’s mobile phones. With varied uses for individuals, small business and large enterprises, we provide a trusted scalable platform that you can use to send from 1 to +1 million messages.

Our services are used by media companies, enterprises, banks (for reporting and fraud control), consumer brands for a variety of purposes including entertainment, promotions and mobile marketing, churches, schools and even individuals – for personal messaging.Bulk messaging is commonly used for alerts, reminders, marketing but also for information and communication between both staff and customers. Bulk messaging lets you deliver SMS messages to mobile handsets almost anywhere in the world.

Our tailored platforms provide you with the opportunity to add as many phone numbers as required from varied sources – either manually or automated via our API’s, and these phone numbers can be managed in a variety of ways with a validation + duplicate checkers to optimize your spend and reduce consumer lash back as happens when multiple similar messages are received.Messages can also be scheduled for future delivery, with options for once off or recurring.

With as many personalization needs as there are clients, we offer custom template wizards that allow you to personalize your messages to your audience adapting to your unique customer’s database.

Alphanumeric Sender Id’s
We offer custom sender ids, which for businesses means that you can send out messages using your company name. Due to increased fraud perpetrated via mobile phone in many of the territories we operate in, some countries and mobile networks levy a fee for the registration of these sender id’s with Symbiotic mandated to do the requisite KYC – know your customer due diligence. This is made known to you an individual basis depending on the territory you wish to engage our services.

Our Bulk SMS platfrom – TumaSMS is

Proven: We powers some of the East Africa’s biggest brands and services

Scalable: We handles millions of messages every month

Reliable: Enterprise-class uptime backed by enterprise-class support

Secure: Stringent data security, and robust policies as modeled on the MMA

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USSD Codes

The simplest way to describe USSD, which stands for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data is an interactive star menu engagement through an easy to remember code. USSD allows for high-speed and interactive communications between the user and an application on a GSM network. Basically, USSD enables you to request services by entering a specific short sequence of characters on the handset starting with a star sign / asterisk * and ending with a hash #, such as *144#

The beauty of USSD is that it is accessible from the simplest of feature phones to the top end smart phones. What makes it different from SMS is that SMS is a store and forward service, whereas USSD is a session-based service. When a user accesses a USSD service, a session is established and the connection stays open until the user, application, or time-out closes it.

Business Models
USSD business models can get tricky due to the cost of deployment and mobile operator internal business models. Billing by the operator is done on either PrePaid or PostPaid with no revenue share.

On PrePaid, your customer is charged a flat fee per interaction, while on PostPaid you will be billed per per session. These costs vary per operator. We apply a small business margin on this and the end figure is what you pay. You will notice that banks and utility companies are the main users of USSD as they can levy a fee to their customers account at the end of the month to recoup charges.

If you have a service for which you can transfer this cost and even apply an additional margin, or can position the cost into your consumer acquisition funnel, USSD offers numerous benefits over SMS with the first being that you can do a lot more in one session that you can on one sms.

Due to high CapEX and OpEX on dedicated USSD codes, you are welcome to leverage our shared USSD code which is PostPaid. We will be happy to transfer you to a dedicated code should your growing business require it.

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Quick Fire Service Modules

We have over the years run many promotions and lotteries for blue chip FMCG outfits, with millions of transactions processed. We understand fully the requirements that many brand and marketing managers have. Our in – house engineering team can adapt our tried and tested platforms to any business requirement from a user experience, gaming logic ,reporting and prize delivery mechanic perspective.

Perfect for Quiz games | Ring and Win | Text and Win | Mobile lottery ; the packages would additionally include a mix and match of:

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The mobile content engine

We recognize that we live in the “era of the creator” and every one has the ability to create content and build an audience. It is our opinion at Symbiotic, that monetization should be the least of your worries as a creator.